


you're holy to me

by kadaransmuggler



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 07:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13736238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: "Dean loves.It is messy and reluctant and he tries to pretend he doesn't, but he does."(Or, Dean and Castiel finally get together.)





	you're holy to me

Dean  _ loves. _

 

It is messy, reluctant, and he tries to pretend otherwise, but he does. He doesn’t admit it, though. 

 

Not until he’s down on his knees, face bruised and bloody and broken, fingers grasping at anything they can reach. His chest burns with every breath, and it threatens to unravel him. “Cas,” he says, and the words he’s about to say have the metallic tang of blood to them, “I need you.” He has never felt more vulnerable than he does in this moment, and it burns in the back of his throat. 

 

Castiel stands there, towering over him, for another second that drags into an eternity. Dean’s heart is in his throat, his fingers tangled in the trenchcoat, and he knows that if Cas doesn’t drop the blade he’s going to die here- he never had any interest in fighting back. 

 

The blade falls to the floor with a clatter. Dean stares at him in disbelief, eyes wide, fingers loosening their grip but not letting go. Cas reaches, then, his hand curling around Dean’s face, and Dean can’t stop himself from flinching away. There’s warmth, pouring out of Cas’ hand, and then the pain in his face recedes. There’s a half-second of disbelief, where all he can do is look up at the man towering above him and wonder how he’s still alive. 

 

But he is. 

 

And he loves him. 

 

* * *

 

It is not something they will talk about for a long time. There are looks, of course, passed between them when they think nobody else is looking. These looks are desperate, longing things that each of them try to explain away but can’t quite manage to. Castiel loves, too, but Dean doesn’t want to believe it, doesn’t want to let himself believe it. Doesn’t want to let himself feel, either, but that’s harder to stop.

 

* * *

 

Castiel isn’t the only person Dean loves. Dean just loves him different. If pressed, the hunter could name off at least half a dozen people he loves. Sam, for one, and Bobby for another. But Cas is different in a way Dean can’t quite put his finger on, in a way that scares him. He finds himself seeking the angel out before he knows what he’s doing, and he scrambles to come up with an excuse, too bull-headed to let himself admit that he just wanted the man’s company. But when it happens, Castiel always gives him the same shy smile, like he knows what’s going through Dean’s head but he’s willing to let him pretend. It makes Dean’s heart trip in his chest, makes him want to seek him out even more.

 

Sometimes Castiel will seek him out, instead, when nothing’s happening and they’re sitting in the bunker like they finally have a home. Cas usually doesn’t say anything, just looks for Dean until he finds him and then he curls up somewhere in the same room, usually with a book or something to occupy him. 

 

Funnily enough, Sam is nowhere to be found when this happens.

 

* * *

 

The first time they kiss, Dean has gotten hurt again. It was one of the rare times he was working with Cas; he won’t remember the job later- it was something simple, something routine, but he’d been caught off guard and gotten a black eye and a foot-shaped bruise across his chest for his trouble. He does remember that they were in some shitty motel, the light in the bathroom buzzing in a way that made his head hurt. He was sitting on the counter, balanced precariously on the edge so he didn’t fall into the sink while Cas fussed over the scrapes on his face.

 

“I’m okay, Cas,” he murmurs, shifting, wincing against a surge of pain. Cas stills, his mouth twisted into a frown, his hand coming to rest on Dean’s thigh. Dean flicks his eyes down, breath hitching in his throat. 

 

“I know,” Castiel sighs, and then Dean’s hands are fisted in his coat, yanking him forward. Their lips meet with bruising intensity- it is years of wanting tangled up in the high of finally as Castiel’s brain stutters over the fact that Dean has kissed him. He’s too surprised to do anything but stand there. 

 

Dean starts to push him away, his face flushed and his breathing heavy, sure he’s made an ass of himself. An apology springs to his lips as he looks up at Castiel- but he won’t quite meet his gaze. Cas takes another half second to process, and then his fingers are fisted in the front of Dean’s shirt as he pulls him back in, this one softer. 

 

Dean remembers thinking,  _ He’s kissing me back. _

 

* * *

 

Later that night, they will lie on their shitty motel beds, the distance between them both too little and too much. Castiel will roll over on his side, towards Dean, where the street lights outside silhouette him against the dark of the room. The thought of going back to where they had been before- both of them pretending that the other didn’t mean half as much as they do- is enough to break his heart. 

 

He slips out of the bed, feet bare on the carpet. In the dark, he sees Dean’s head move, eyes tracking his movements. Cas brings himself to the edge of Dean’s bed. There’s plenty of space there for him, too, and he once he thinks it he can’t make the thought go away. The urge is almost painfully insistent, so Castiel mumbles something incoherent under his breath and crawls under the covers. Dean turns to face him, and Castiel can see the man’s grin even in the dark. 

 

“Your bed too big?” Dean asks, voice gruff, but he reaches through the darkness until he finds Cas’ hand and links his fingers through his. 

 

“Only when it’s empty,” Cas murmurs, already drifting towards sleep. 

 

* * *

 

In the morning, they wake to sunlight streaming through the blinds. Dean has draped himself across Castiel at some point during the night, his head tucked into the crook of his neck, one arm thrown over his chest. Their legs are tangled together, and Castiel is entirely too warm for comfort, but he can’t keep the smile off of his face. He tries to stay still but Dean wakes up a second later, stretching like a cat and curling even closer as he blinks his eyes open. 

 

“Morning,” he says, voice husky from sleep, a faint smile on his face. 

 

“Morning,” Cas answers, running his fingers through Dean’s hair.

 

* * *

 

Sam finds out by accident. Dean was scared for someone to find out, scared it’d shatter this thing between him and Cas, and Cas is content to let Dean take this at his own pace. 

 

They’d fallen asleep on the couch, and Dean had curled himself around Cas like he always does. Sam sees them when he gets up in the night for a glass of water. He abandons his quest for water, goes and gets a blanket out of the closet to drape over them. Cas sleeps like the dead, but Dean shifts and groans when he feels Sam tucking them in, makes his eyes open even though they feel like sandpaper. 

 

Sam puts a finger over his lips, eyes twinkling. “Go back to sleep,” he whispers. Dean’s too drowsy to panic about the cat being let out of the bag, so he nestles back into Cas and falls asleep again. 

 

* * *

 

“Congrats,” Sam says, the next morning over breakfast. Dean’s face flushes and he mumbles out a response. 

 

Nothing changes between him and Cas, and he lets himself breathe easy again. 

 

* * *

 

The kiss doesn’t fix things, doesn’t fix Dean. He’s broken in a way that’ll take years to heal from, and he doesn’t see any point in denying it.  

 

But Castiel makes Dean want to get better, makes him want to stop getting worse. 

 

He has to learn how to be soft, how to carve away the hard edges left by years of hunting. It isn’t easy, and there are just as many things he has to unlearn as there are things to learn, but he can feel himself getting better. It’s easier, now, to lean into touches and not feel so desperate and vulnerable. Easier to share a bed and not get embarrassed when he wakes up clinging. 

 

It’s easier to show affection, too. Dean never wanted to hide this thing between them, but for a long while he found himself freezing up whenever someone else was in the room. Now, he can give Cas a quick kiss to his temple as he passes him in the kitchen, Sam standing at the coffee pot. 

 

The world has never been kind to Dean Winchester, but he’s learning how to take what he wants, to carve out his happiness in a world determined to take it away. The world is cruel enough to him- it’s time he learned how to be nice to himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! thanks for reading, and i hope you liked it! i don't usually write supernatural- i haven't watched the show for years now at this point, but there's something about dean and cas that keeps drawing me back to them. i may write more if people want it (and feel free to suggest ideas! i'd love to write these two more often!) and i feel like i can do it justice. 
> 
> as always, feel free to leave a comment below letting me know what you think. i usually respond to all of them. thanks again for reading!


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